The Pilgrim Way

David Whyte, Poet DLitt

David Whyte may be the closest thing we have to an ancient Homeric bard--someone who offers a spellbinding mix of poetry, myth, philosophical reflection, and personal anecdote to audiences all over the world. That he's also trained as a marine zoologist and led naturalist trips in the Galapagos, South …

Attachment and the Dance of Sex

Susan Johnson Ed.D.

Until relatively recently, the very notion that concepts like romantic love and the longing for emotional closeness had any scientific basis raised eyebrows among the academic research establishment. Susan Johnson, the developer of Emotionally Focused therapy (EFT), has not only been a …

How Hard Times Can Open the Heart

Rick Hanson PhD

With his best-selling books Buddha's Brain, Hardwiring Happiness, and Just One Thing, psychologist Rick Hanson has become the foremost explicator of the brain's "negativity bias," our evolutionary tendency as vulnerable mammals to be more or less continually on the lookout for danger, ready …

The View from Black America

Kenneth V. Hardy PhD

In its coverage of Ferguson and Baltimore, the media has fixed on lurid images of violence and destruction without providing much context for understanding the conditions of daily life that could possibly spark such explosive outrage. As one of the most eloquent and compelling …

The Wisdom of Mad Men

William Doherty PhD

In its seven seasons on TV, Mad Men captivated audiences and critics alike with its mesmerizing recreation of 1960s America and its evocation of power, sex, booze, and chauvinism at a succeed-at-any-cost Madison Avenue advertising firm. With a focus on dysfunctional family life, toxic work …

Solace - The Art of Asking the Beautiful Question

David Whyte, Poet DLitt

Spend the morning in a special interactive session with poet David Whyte, discovering the deep well of beauty and creativity that lies within each of us. Through his storytelling, poetry readings, and directed writing exercises, you'll explore language as a tool to …

Transforming Your Habits

Hugh Byrne PhD

Almost all of us have habits that we'd like to change as well as healthy habits that we wish to cultivate. However, as we know, changing ingrained habits can prove to be among life's most frustrating challenges. Mindfulness is a key to habit change, allowing us to bring unconscious and automatic …

Learn How to Love Yourself

Tim Desmond MS, LMFT

What would it feel like to love and accept every part of yourself? In this workshop, we'll learn a four-step process for cultivating self-compassion with roots in modern science and the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. We'll begin with guided meditations to help us get in touch with an embodied …

Pre-Conference Clinical: From Good to Great

Hedy Schleifer MA, LMHC

Are you searching for a way to move to the next level of clinical expertise and enjoyment in your work? In this workshop, take part in an experiential learning adventure in how to go from "good to great." You'll leave with renewed energy and inspired ideas on how to become …

Pre-Conference Clinical: Transforming Shame and Self-Loathing

Janina Fisher PhD

Shame and self-loathing are often part of trauma's aftermath--responses so powerful they can shut off the capacity to absorb positive experience, block the ability to connect with others, and frustrate the best efforts of therapists to build self-esteem. This …

While every therapist understands that treatment is most effective when it unfolds within the context of a safe therapeutic relationship, it's often challenging to build a meaningful alliance with traumatized clients who turn therapy into an …

Pre-Conference Clinical: The Ethical Dilemmas No One Talks About

Mary Jo Barrett MSW + Linda Stone Fish MSW, PhD

The ethical rules for therapists used to be straightforward and unambiguous: no gifts, no dual relationships, no out-of-session contact, and of course, no sex. But the ease of digital connection and the shift in our profession's …

What the Brain Needs for Transformational Change

Part 1: Post-Traumatic Growth

Rewiring the Brain to Enhance Attachment

Linda Graham MFT

When work with a client bogs down, it's often because of early attachment wounds that lead to maladaptive coping strategies and impaired emotional regulation. They also derail the full development of the prefrontal cortex, the neural basis of emotional and relational intelligence. …

Part 1: The Challenge of Treating Complex PTSD

Moving Through the Eye of the Storm

Richard Schwartz PhD + Deany Laliotis LICSW + Janina Fisher PhD

Whatever their approach, most trauma therapists would agree that establishing a sense of safety and connection is essential to therapeutic success. But different models offer very different methods for creating those conditions. Using videos …

Crucial Conversations for a Complex World

David Whyte, Poet DLitt

Take this opportunity to engage in a morning of conversation with this year's Keynoter and explore how art and poetry can inspire us to go beyond the limited autobiographical perspective of psychotherapy to expand the story of our lives in previously unimagined new …

Mastering the Anxiety Game

Reid Wilson PhD

Therapists are supposed to make clients safe and secure, creating a cozy haven from a cruel world, right? Well, when it comes to treating anxiety, there's growing evidence that the quickest, most effective approach involves instructing them to ramp up their fears while telling themselves how much …

Playing to the Edge

Courtney Armstrong LPC

Good therapy often involves moving beyond providing acceptance and safety to challenging clients to stretch beyond their comfort zones and try things they didn't think they were capable of. But how do you effectively challenge clients without overwhelming them or running them off? In this workshop, …

21St-Century LGBTQ

Margaret Nichols PhD

You don't need a niche practice these days to encounter clients, especially younger ones, who identify as queer, pansexual, gender fluid, or any number of new and creative sex and gender identities. The expansion of the LGBTQ community to a "big tent" tribe that validates widely different forms of …

Men and Integrity

Patrick Dougherty MA, LP

Therapists often struggle to find leverage in working with defensive or avoidant male clients reluctant to engage emotionally with their partners or in the therapy room. But while they resist deeper psychological inquiry, evoking the masculine virtue of integrity can help men develop a new vision …

When the Therapist Gets Triggered

Jette Simon DIPLLic + Signe Simon-Coulter MSEd

As therapists, we all know moments when the intensity of the emotions our clients trigger in us can be disorienting or even overwhelming. What's not often discussed is how those trigger moments can vary as a function of the therapist's age and experience. In …

The New World of Clinical Virtual Reality

Albert "Skip" Rizzo PhD

Since the 1990s, virtual reality (VR) has rapidly evolved from an expensive computer toy into an affordable, increasingly popular clinical tool for assessing, managing, and treating such conditions as anxiety disorders, PTSD, acute pain, autism spectrum disorder, and ADHD. In …

Real Men Aren't Gay

Robert Garfield MD + Michael LaSala PhD, LCSW

Men's internalized homophobia often sabotages their ability to establish meaningful relationships with their partners, friends, families, and even themselves. In our consulting rooms, we find that internalized homophobia raises fears in both gay and straight men that result …

Nutritional Essentials for Mental Health

Leslie Korn PhD, MPH, LMHC, ACS

Research increasingly indicates that mental health and well-being are related to diet. This workshop will explore how you can bring this knowledge into your practice. We'll examine the latest nutritional research and discuss its importance for psychotherapeutic …

Addressing Attachment Issues with Traumatized Teens

Martha Straus PhD

To work with troubled and traumatized adolescents, it's crucial for therapists to first foster their own capacity for self-awareness and self-regulation. It's not easy, though, especially when our young clients' extreme reactions--ranging from angry arousal to frozen …

Part 2: The Healing Power of Self-Compassion

Part 2: Post-Traumatic Growth

Rewiring the Brain to Enhance Attachment

Linda Graham MFT

When work with a client bogs down, it's often because of early attachment wounds that lead to maladaptive coping strategies and impaired emotional regulation. They also derail the full development of the prefrontal cortex, the neural basis of emotional and relational intelligence. …

Part 2: The Challenge of Treating Complex PTSD

The New Era of Brain-Based Psychotherapy

David Feinstein PhD + David Grand PhD + Stephen Porges PhD

Recent years have seen a cascade of innovative psychotherapies claiming to routinely achieve dramatic breakthroughs without relying on many of the fundamental features of traditional talk therapy. Using videos of clinical sessions, this …

The Myth of Sex Addiction

Joe Kort PhD, LMSW

Rather than providing a pathway to healing, the sex addiction model too often contributes to clients being sexually lost and at odds with their own nature. Therapists are left with both being unable to help clients with their continued out-of-control sexual behaviors and also with the …

Healing from Infidelity

Michele Weiner-Davis MSW, LCSW

If you work with couples, you're probably no stranger to the clinical challenge of helping them heal from infidelity. Using vivid video examples, this workshop will provide a comprehensive roadmap to the complex, zigzag nature of the road to recovery, where progress can be marked by …

The Gender Nonconforming Child

Jean Malpas LMHC, LMFT

Therapists working with the families of LGBT youth are facing questions for which there are no easy answers. What's the best way to respond when the parent of a transgender teenager refuses to give him or her access to hormone therapy? Or when the parents of an 8-year-old gender …

Promoting Positive Caregiving

Barry Jacobs PsyD, LP, DBTC + Julia Mayer PsyD

While caring for aging parents is often portrayed as a physical, psychological, and financial burden, there's a growing body of research suggesting that caregivers can derive important benefits from their role, including increased life satisfaction and even …

Treating the Out-Of-Control Parent

Ron Taffel PhD

In the high-stress 21st-century world, parents increasingly complain of depression, psychic paralysis and sudden impulsivity, intrusive thoughts of failure, even harming their own children, and over time, losing a loving connection with them. Feeling out-of-control and inadequate as parents, …

Treating Domestic Violence Offenders

Steven Stosny PhD

Outrage at a video of NFL running back Ray Rice punching his fiancée unconscious brought massive media attention to the problem of domestic violence. But the media focus on the importance of abusers being punished ignored the question of how to actually help them change their …

Customizing Couples Therapy

David Treadway PhD

Couples in therapy often struggle with too many issues and too little time. This workshop offers an approach to help clients design their own treatment plan by determining whether to work on making changes in the here and now, focus on healing from past wounds, or explore their family of …

What Therapists Need to Know About the Digital World

Robert Weiss LCSW, CSAT-S

In the 1960s, we experienced the Generation Gap. Today a Technology Gap exists between tech-novice therapists and their app- and device-savvy clients. This workshop will bring you up to speed on what you need to know about the myriad ways in which social and …

The Sexually Well-Informed Clinician

Ian Kerner PhD, LMFT

Did you know that the clitoris has 18 different parts that each play a role in sexual function? Or that men regularly experience three different types of erections? Knowledge is power, and nowhere is that truer than in the practice of sex therapy at a time when the science of …

Right Brain to Right Brain

Daniel Leven MPC, RSMT

The idea that the mind and body are inextricably intertwined is widely accepted in our field, but many therapists ignore pivotal information that can be gleaned from nonverbal cues such as body language, vocal tone, and facial expressions. It's through these cues that the client's "emotional …

From Tweens to Teens

Maria Fleshood DMin, LPC

For decades, professionals have raised alarm about the difficulties girls face during their teen years. But we're just starting to focus on the plight of tween girls, who face the same pressures and struggles, but at an earlier age. Immersed in an increasingly sexualized, cyber-saturated, and …

Part 1: An Introduction to Brainspotting

Part 1: Saying No to Psychiatric Meds

Secrets and Responsibilities in Working with Infidelity

Terry Real LICSW + Michele Weiner-Davis MSW, LCSW

Few situations feel as high stakes as healing infidelity--especially if the unfaithful partner is unremorseful or doesn't want to give up the affair. Should we keep confidences? Should we insist on monogamy from this point forward? …

How to Uplift Your Clients

Courtney Armstrong LPC

Here's the dilemma: you want to validate your clients' emotions, but you also know that spending too much time focusing on pain can lead to therapeutic stagnation. The solution: uplift your clients to evoke their desired emotional state. Eliciting these positive emotions will give them …

Transgender 101

Margaret Nichols PhD

Transgender and gender expansive children and adults are more visible today than they were in the past, and there has been a corresponding paradigm shift in the way psychiatry views gender variance. You've probably seen or heard of more gender nonconforming clients who describe themselves as gender fluid …

From Patients to Consumers

Lynn Grodzki LCSW, MCC

In today's marketplace, therapists who want their practices to thrive need to change the way they present themselves to clients who want it all--a price bargain and immediate results. So how do we explain to these anxious "shoppers" that lasting change takes time? This workshop provides …

Treating Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Sally Winston PsyD + Martin Seif PhD, ABPP

Almost everything we learned about OCD in graduate school prior to 2000 was just plain wrong: it's not rare, obvious, hard to treat, or a manifestation of deep underlying conflict. We now know it's common, often unrecognized, and that it's far more helpful to …

The Rules of the New Monogamy

Tammy Nelson PhD

Committed intimate partnerships as we've known them are shifting. Couples today are negotiating their monogamy in new and creative ways involving different types of sexual arrangements, including open marriage, polyamory, group marriages, transgender relationships, and a variety of intentional …

How to Talk with Teenagers

Janet Sasson Edgette PsyD, MPH

Most teens are only in therapy because their parents, their teachers, the juvenile court judge, or some other authority has told them they must see a therapist--or else. Consequently, they often find standard therapeutic bromides and shrink-wrapped attempts to "engage" them …

Helping Clients Get Centered

Amy Weintraub MFA, ERYT-500

Have you ever considered using yoga skills to help clients focus, relax, and access their feelings during sessions and at home? After all, the work of therapy can't begin in earnest if the client's mind is racing with anxiety, fogged by depression, or so tense that the entire body is …

Sex Made Simple

Barry McCarthy PhD, ABPP

Sexual dysfunction and dissatisfaction is the most common mental health problem in the United States. But all too often when clients raise sexual problems in therapy, clinicians either skirt the issue by diverting the conversation to other personal and relational issues or reinforce the myth that a …

Improving School Performance

Jody Nelson EdD, LMFT

Just as family and home environments can create and maintain mental health disorders, teachers and school environments can contribute to the various performance problems young people experience. This workshop targets two practitioner audiences--therapists already working in school-based or …

Overcoming Culture Blindness

Anita Mandley LCPC

If you work with African Americans, Native Americans, Holocaust survivors and their descendants, or any other disenfranchised clients, you're working with the legacies of cultural and historical trauma. This workshop will open a path toward addressing wounds and issues that too often go …

Inside Hookup Culture

Alexandra Solomon PhD

Today's emerging adults are navigating a brave new dating world of hookups, friends with benefits, and other ambiguous relationships, facilitated and amplified by new technologies and digital platforms. Often these digital natives crave connection and foresee marriage and children in their future, …

Engaging the Client with a Disorganized Attachment Style

Straightforward problem-solving is simply not an effective option in work with clients with intense trauma histories and disorganized attachment styles. Therapeutic tasks like creating initial conditions of …

The Power of Self-Talk in Anxiety Treatment

Reid Wilson PhD

How do you move someone toward anxious uncertainty when their heart, mind, and soul are committed to finding safety? The key is helping clients alter their self-talk in a way that transforms their relationship with a feared situation from one of "threat" to one of "challenge." This …

Race in and Outside the Therapy Room

Kenneth V. Hardy PhD

Rather than signaling an end to racism, the Obama presidency has revealed how much stereotypes and tensions about race still pervade much of American society. But even though we may want to broach the issue of race openly, honestly, and respectfully, too often, we typically feel …

The Sex-Starved Marriage

Michele Weiner-Davis MSW, LCSW

One out of every three couples struggles with mismatched sexual desire--a formula for marital disaster. When one spouse is sexually dissatisfied and the other is oblivious, unconcerned, or uncaring, sex isn't the only casualty; a sense of emotional connection can also disappear. This …

Grounding the Overwhelmed Client

Ann Weiser Cornell PhD

For the work of therapy to move forward, clients need some emotional regulation from the start. This workshop will offer interventions that help clients acknowledge, be with, and keep company with even their most intensely vulnerable states. We'll explore how to help clients develop a …

Sticky Minds and Subtle OCD

Sally Winston PsyD + Martin Seif PhD, ABPP

We've all had the experience of working with clients who get stuck as they talk in endless loops about their worries or preoccupations, continually returning to the distressed place they started. That's because what's really troubling the client is a subtle form of OCD …

New Perspectives on Porn

Ian Kerner PhD, LMFT

True or false: porn desensitizes people to genuine intimacy? Or wait, true or false: porn use is a normal, healthy expression of human sexuality? Porn is a confusing and polarizing topic that can easily trigger therapists' negative counter-transference. But the fact is that people in the United …

The Intentional Divorce

Tammy Nelson PhD

Divorce with dignity may sound like an oxymoron, but it's possible. This workshop introduces an approach designed to teach partners to end their marriage with a sense of integrity and respect for another, rather than continuing conflict and bitterness. Learn to help clients reframe the "end" of the …

The Conduct-Disordered Client

Robert Hull MA, ED, EDS, MHS

The key to working effectively with conduct-disordered clients is helping them transform overwhelming feelings of rage and helplessness into constructive action. This workshop will demonstrate approaches to addressing the roots of oppositional behavior--the internal sense of being …

Working with Aging Men

Barry McCarthy PhD, ABPP

While 30 percent of men over 60 fall prey to depression, alcohol abuse, and sexual avoidance, the primary challenge of psychological, relational, and sexual health is typically one of misguided beliefs and expectations. In this workshop, you'll learn an empathic approach to confront and change …

Uncoupling and Recoupling At Midlife and Beyond

Patricia Papernow EdD

Although divorce and marriage rates are generally falling, they're skyrocketing among those over 50. That's why so many of us are seeing an influx of later-life uncouplers and recouplers in our offices. In this workshop, you'll learn how to effectively manage the …

Sex, Tech, and Addiction

Robert Weiss LCSW, CSAT-S

When we talked about addictions in the past, we usually meant being hooked on substances, such as alcohol or drugs. Today, however, the instant access, affordability, and anonymity of the Internet has created an escalation of related relationship and sexual behavior problems ranging from …

A New Approach to Self-Care

Ashley Davis Bush MSW, LICSW

Most therapists pay lip service to the idea that self-care is important in guarding against compassion fatigue and burnout. But lack of time, energy, and resources often make self-care techniques feel like just another item to check off on a long to-do list. The solution: bring …

Hardwiring Happiness

Rick Hanson PhD

We all need inner strengths such as resilience, confidence, and feeling cared about to bolster us through life--strengths largely derived from our positive experiences of them. Unfortunately, the brain's evolved negativity bias, which makes it like Velcro for the bad and Teflon for the good, creates a …

The Many Faces of EMDR

Deany Laliotis LICSW

While EMDR is best known for its treatment of trauma, it has developed into a comprehensive psychotherapy approach that treats a broad spectrum of presenting issues across various clinical populations. This workshop is for practitioners who are interested in learning more about this highly …

How Therapy Can Enhance Psychopharmacology

Frank Anderson MD

Many therapists feel that talking about meds with their clients is beyond their purview. But this workshop presents a model for helping therapists become more informed and effective in working with their clients on medication issues in ways that will enhance the success of the …

Dr. Jekyll Meets Mr. Hyde

Steven Stosny PhD

As therapists, we're often so focused on helping our clients make significant progress during therapy that we pay less attention to helping them maintain these gains after therapy ends. But research shows that in the throes of life stresses, clients often revert to the negative habits that brought …

Therapy and the Dying Client

David Kessler MA, RN

As baby boomers are now more than ever facing their own mortality, therapists are being called upon to play an increasingly important role in the last chapter of life. While therapists often receive education in grief, they typically have very little understanding of the dying client and …

Creating Secure Attachment in Couples Therapy

Kathryn Rheem EdD, LMFT

Partners with a history of disordered attachment can be among the most challenging clients that couples therapists see. Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) offers a clear road map for working with such unpredictable escalating couples by helping them access and share …

An Introduction to Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Anita Mandley LCPC

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a model that can be applied across a range of difficult-to-treat conditions, including borderline personality disorder, alcoholism, eating disorders, and a range of self-injurious behaviors. This workshop will teach you how to develop …

Treating the Traumatized Adolescent

Amelio D'Onofrio PhD

Trauma often results in the loss of secure attachment, especially for children and adolescents who've lost hope that others can be supportive, protective, and caring. As a result, traumatized youth often find it difficult to trust that a therapist has their best interests at heart, …

The Challenges of Becoming a Stepfamily

Patricia Papernow EdD

Although 42 percent of Americans have a close stepfamily relationship, many therapists still don't appreciate the intense challenges of creating a new family organization. Parents and stepparents often find themselves in conflict over discipline, grappling with differences in …

A Food-Peace Tool Kit

Julie Duffy Dillon RD, NCC, LDN, CEDRD

The diet industry takes in 60 billion dollars a year by urging us to follow rigid meal plans, submit to painful exercise regimens, and distrust our bodies. But while it promises weight loss, the research suggests weight increases and quality of life decreases when people diet. So …

Addictive Behavior As the Problem

Janina Fisher PhD

It's no secret that many therapists consider the field of addictions treatment to be dangerous foreign territory with its own special language and methods. But increasingly, therapists and substance abuse professionals alike have begun to recognize the connection between addictive behavior …

Internet Marketing Bootcamp for the Overwhelmed Clinician

Joe Bavonese PhD

Although the Internet has become the biggest referral source for private practitioners, many therapists feel overwhelmed when trying to keep up with all the latest marketing approaches, newest mobile devices (which now account for 60% of searches for therapy), and …

Engaging Teens on the Autism Spectrum

Liz McDonough MFT, RDT

Much of autism treatment today is dominated by behavioral approaches focused on teaching specific skills to young children. But by the time adolescence rolls around, even the most verbal kids on the autism spectrum are still isolated, plagued with anxiety, and prone to meltdowns. …

An Integrative Approach to Complex Trauma

Deborah Korn PsyD

With so many models to choose from in the trauma field today, how do you decide which is best for your client? How do you decide whether to intervene at the somatic, emotional, behavioral, or cognitive level? This workshop will introduce a clear framework for integrating a range of …

Grief Intelligence

Ashley Davis Bush MSW, LICSW

Although grief is a universal human experience, many of us feel ill-equipped to understand and help our clients work through their deep sense of bereavement. How do we further help them if their grief immobilizes them, retriggering past traumas or overwhelming them with persistent negative …

Integrating Neurofeedback Into Psychotherapy

Siegfried Othmer PhD, BCIAC + Susan Othmer PhD

The most intractable issues therapists encounter are the result of early developmental disruptions that determine the brain's basic patterns of functioning and are inaccessible to the usual clinical interventions. The recently developed method of …

Hakomi

Halko Weiss PhD

While traditional talk therapy relies largely on conscious awareness, research shows that explicit brain functions have only limited impact on our feelings and behaviors. In this experiential workshop, we'll explore how to use Hakomi's mind-body approach to dyadic mindfulness to tap into often ignored implicit brain …

An Introduction to Coaching

Leslie Austin PhD

Despite all the parallels between therapy and coaching, relatively few therapists have been able to launch successful coaching practices. This workshop will focus on three key elements in becoming a successful coach: establishing a solid business model, understanding how the goals and boundaries …

When Eating and Loving Don't Mesh

Edward Abramson PhD

Clinical discussions of body image issues, repeated failures at dieting, and problems with obesity too often ignore the marital and sexual issues that can affect eating habits and weight control. Dieting, whether successful or not, can alter the dynamics of a relationship, and the …

Keeping the Inspiration Alive (Special Symposium Wrap-Up)

Jody Wager MS, BC-DMT

Don't let the energy and inspiration of the Symposium fade before you have a chance to truly integrate new ideas into your life and work. In this experiential workshop, you'll use the latest understanding of how the human brain works to maximize the Symposium's …